Valve Implements New Policies In Response To Developer Scams

August 1st, 2018 Connor

Steam has played host to some malicious developers in the past, from Ata Berdyev to James Romine of Digital Homicide, but this week saw Valve’s lacking moderation pushed to a new level as several developers started uploading fake items to their in-game inventories with the intent of either directly defrauding or assisting in defrauding players. One game, Climber, changed its logo to Dota 2’s to further the scam while a third game actually changed its name to Team Fortress 2, logo and all. All of these games have since been removed and their developers permanently barred from releasing future titles, but the fact that the incidences occurred at all has shined a big light into how poorly Valve moderated its systems.

As reported by PC Gamer, Valve has begun requiring approval for game name changes, and has added in extra protections to make sure you don’t accidentally trade items for a fake indie game version. The trade screen will now flash a warning requiring the user to accept twice before trading items to a game that they do not own or have never played.

“We also started requiring approval for app name changes, and have more planned to address this sort of problem that we couldn’t get done in one day,”
-Tony Paloma